To begin with, Tom Waits is one of my favorite artists for a long time. He never chumed up with anybody, staying true to his hoarse and sonorous voice but still managing to write and perform beautiful and fragile songs such as "Downtown Train", "Jersey Girl" or "Ol'55". For an interesting and well written watch here.
However, I was pretty surprised when I heard that the actress Scarlett Johansson did record an album with cover versions of Tom Waits songs. I straight got the record and listened to it first time at night when I was going home from a show by car. It is definitely a record for the night, that's for a fact. It took me some time to get used to her voice (as you'll here below). She is not going to high neither is it to melodic. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a good Tom Waits cover when it's perfectly sung and she's interpreting it in a great manner.
Produced by multi-instrumentalist David Sitek and with a band composed of Yeah Yeah Yeah's Nick Zinner and members from TV on the Radio, Tall Firs and Celebration the album was recorded in just a couple of weeks and you can really feel the session character. Another interesting feature is the one of David Bowie on two of the songs ("Fallin' Down" and "Fannin Street"), but listen yourself.
You can also find a very well written and extensive review at: Pitchfork.com.
The videos from the AOL sessions below should give you a good first impression (but still this is nothing compared to the record enjoyed at night):
Another Waits classic:
Aaaaand last, but not least, the great scene from Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes" with Iggy Pop, enjoy:
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